The dimensional travel in the Download was by far the best aspect of this book but the characters was unlikely and just really hard to connect which really forced me out of the novel but I didn't care what happened to characters.

Book Review: The Download
June 6, 2017

The Download by R. E. Carr

I saw a tweet the other day that said, "distinctively bad movies > bland movies". That kind of sums up how I feel about this book: it's not good, per se, but it sure isn't bland, either, which left me... oddly fond of it? I'll mention some of the problems I had with it, but I can't help but appreciate how unique it is and how willing to commit to the pure, bat-poop craziness.

The premise, real quick, is this (and you'll see what I mean when I said it was committed to the craziness): Jenn walks in on her roommate's experiment one day, which involves a whole bunch of computers hooked up to an ancient rock. Then lightning strikes, and Jenn's consciousness is transported to an alien world and DOWNLOADed (hence the title) into a body by a supercomputer that needs a physical servant in order to unlock seven seals that will... release it. Or something. I was never quite clear on why the computer could create a body for Jenn but not for itself. Anyway, so Jenn is on this alien planet opening seals, and luckily she's accompanied by a half-man/half-snowleopard whom she's forced to marry. He's of the Beast tribe, who worship the supercomputer and can turn into animals sometimes.

That's the premise. But some other crazy stuff going on here:

***SPOILERS! BEWARE!***
Little gray aliens in an airship (a blimp) who are at war with the Beast tribe and use people with jewels in their heads as batteries to power their ship.
Knights who possess the memories of all their ancestors, making them unbeatable fighters.
A computer implanted in Jenn's brain.
A blind Mayan assassin with violet hair.
Copies of Jenn. This was where I just had to laugh - one of the villains is a copy of the hero who was also downloaded into a body, but by someone else? A bad computer? I've already forgotten. But it's Jenn versus Jenn, which is great and insane. I think by the end there had been like four different people with Jenn's exact appearance.
A gladiator tournament! To the death!
***END SPOILERS***

So that's some fun nonsense. Now, a couple of notes about the problems I had with the book.

First, there were some basic mechanical issues with just explaining what was going on. There were scenes where I simply didn't understand what was happening. I wonder if Carr had the chance to put this on the shelf for a couple of months and then come back and read it with fresh eyes. That should have caught some of these, but there they were.

Relatedly, I got confused early on with the introduction of a bunch of characters, many with similar names, and then no reminders of who was who.

For example, in one scene, there was Jenn, who was also being called "Ji-ann" and "Serif-fan." Also in this scene, there are three other speaking characters: Sorakare, Saikain, and Sotaka. And Jenn/Ji-ann/Serif-fan had to choose someone to be her "Sora-khar." So I'm trying to keep track of Serif-fan, Sorakare, Saikain, Sotaka and Sora-khar, most of which were new names that chapter, and that's absurd. If you're going to have that many similar names, you need to throw the reader a bone and help them out (eg: Saikain, ever the warrior, reached for his spear as he spoke. Or: Sorakare fingered his shaman's beads as he listened. You know what I mean? Give us some prompts).

Next, let's talk about snapping, snarling, and spitting. Now, I appreciate the author's effort to use strong, descriptive verbs to convey the tone of the conversation rather than cluttering it up with adverbs. That said, I got VERY tired of "snapped", "snarled", and "spat". For one thing, she overuses them badly (if I had been editing this book, I would have sent her a note to do a CTRL-F for each of those words and just sit back in horror at the number of times they appear). For another thing, they're often too strong / inappropriate for the scene and give the reader emotional whiplash.

Jenn jerked away and snapped, "Don't grab me like that."
Kei sneered. "I am trying to look out for you, Ji-ann the Serif-fan," he snarled.
"I will look out for myself--" Her bravado faded as she squealed and jumped away from a four-inch-long cockroach.
"Really?" Kei asked.
Jenn scowled as the bemused Kei bowed out of her way.

Note the line where Kei sneers, then immediately snarls something to Jenn. Those convey different emotions (disdain vs fury) and don't belong right next to each other. And him being "bemused" just a moment later seems way too abrupt.

Also, (maybe an even bigger problem with all the snapping, snarling, and spitting) characters who act like this don't earn any sympathy from me. All of Jenn's snapping and all of Kei's snarling add up to two unlikeable protagonists whom I have no interest in following.

All in all, I got some enjoyment from all the craziness, but it needed editing, and it needed more likeable characters. I had gotten tired of it by the 67% mark, and I started skipping forward. I was amused to find that an ice queen with a frost bikini had joined the cast of characters. So there's that. Speaking of new characters by the way, there was another new character who showed up in the last 20% of the book (Mihasu or something like that), and by the end, it seemed like I was supposed to care what happened to her and the ice queen. Now, granted, I had been skipping ahead. But if I'm supposed to care about a character, they shouldn't be introduced in the last third of the book. That's simply an error in the writing.

So anyway, read this if you like totally bonkers sci-fi and don't mind some style issues. And for the record, I agree with another review that this would have been better shelved with YA. Jenn acts like a teenager, and the YA crowd would probably be more interested in the leopard-man romance.

Edgar Rice Burroughs meets Roger Zelazny meets Avatar in this intriguing twist on the "Earthling transported to alien planet" idea. Is it real, is it virtual, is it both? Alien "greys" mix with Aztec gods, lycanthropes with robots - there's something for everyone here! It even incorporates a group quest and a VERY confused and peculiar love affair. The prose is light and accessible, the plotting dense and complex - as you may gather from the above. It's pretty long, but I read it in one sitting, caught by the rich mixture of ideas. A very original twist on a mainstream trope.